• Broadway World Anthony Ramos, of Hamilton fame and currently onscreen as Lady Gaga's bestie in A Star is Born, will headline the film version of Lin Manuel Miranda's In the Heights
• Variety Steven Yeun, Wong Kar Wai and Awkwafina are VIPs at the Hawaii Film Festival. Zhang Yimou's Shadow will open the fest.
• /Film John Carpenter is NOT happy that Dwayne Johnson is remaking Big Trouble In Little China
• /Film Guy Ritchie lines up stars for his next film Toff Guys including Henry Golding
More after the jump including Marvel superhero updates, Scarlett Johansson's payday, Willam and Shangela in A Star is Born, and the fresh teaser to Disney's next billion-dollar grosser Aladdin...
• Daily Mail Hugh Jackman poking fun of his aging process as he turns 50
• EW Johnny Depp talks about his Fantastic Beasts role as well as the controversy of his casting given the allegations of abuse
• AV Club shares video and thoughts about Denis Villeneuve's image-making
• Awards Daily really really loves First Man. Yes, this Chazelle person can direct ;)
Superheroes
• THR Ryan Coogler has finally signed a deal to write/direct Black Panther 2 so don't expect the movie until 2021 or 2022
• Next Best Picture Avengers: Infinity War will only campaign for Best Visual Effects (presumably to get out of Black Panther's way entirely)
• Heat Vision Scarlett Johansson nabbing $15 million for standalone Black Widow movie but what's interesting about this article is seeing that Brie Larson appears to have made the most of anyone in their first movie with Marvel.
• Coming Soon a brief video from the set of Spider-Man Far From Home (looks like his suit is red and black now.)
A Star is Born Mania
• Vulture How Willam and Shangela ad-libbed their scenes in A Star is Born
• Forbes argues that ASIB is the film to beat for Best Picture. I personally don't think so (yet... so much premature talk!) but this is well argued
• Into "Gail" (remember her?) is the secret star of the movie - fun piece
• Washington Post all the songs ranked
And finally the teaser to Aladdin...
About which we have not much to say since it's very much a tease in which we glimpse Aladdin himself (Mena Massoud) only at the tail end for a second as he reaches for the lamp, this 'diamond in the rough'... otherwise it very much looks like an animated movie with CG environments and growly cartoon narration. Aladdin opens May 24th, 2019 to challenge Beauty & the Beast's box office crown in the unique subgenre of 'nearly shot for shot live action remakes of animated musical classic for nostalgia's sake'.